HSBC says credit card crash minor

dit card swipe machines in shops are set to keep crashing until January 1, bank chiefs said today. Shoppers face difficulties paying for goods and services at the height of sales fever because a version of the millennium bug has struck early.

A software problem with the credit card terminals means they have been refusing to allow transactions from credit cards and debit cards - such as Visa, Mastercard and Switch - to go through. The glitch has left retailers frantically trying to put transactions through on old-fashioned paper slips.

A spokeswoman for HSBC, the high street bank, which has issued 10,000 swipe machines to retailers, said: 'The fault has been caused by terminals not being able to recognise January 1. It will be completely cleared by January 1.'

The fault has struck despite it still being December because the system operates in such a way that credit card transactions stored on a central computer actually cover a four-day period. This takes them over the crucial January 1 threshold. The millennium bug is caused by computers failing to recognise the date change from 1999 to 2000.

The HSBC spokeswoman said the fault 'might be an end of year problem' rather than the infamous millennium bug, which is specific to January 1 in the year 2000'. She insisted that the fault did not mean the credit card swipe machines could not be used. 'Customers can still pay,' she said. 'The problem is a minor one and can be fixed by pressing a series of keys. Retailers having difficulty can ring our helpline to find out how it is done.'